Staying top of mind with Healthcare Professionals is becoming increasingly challenging for Life Sciences companies as classical digital channels, like rep triggered emails, are more and more saturated. Introducing gamification with HCPs is perceived to be an innovative way of engaging with HCPs to learn about new products, refresh their product knowledge, and drive product advocacy. Jaume Juan, CEO of Compettia, shares insights about attracting customers through gamified learning and knowledge expansion.
Karsten: Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Jaume. To get started, I would like to ask how you developed the idea of running a business based on gamified learning and knowledge?
Jaume: Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you, Karsten. The idea for our gamification platform, Atrivity, came about by recognizing the need for more engaging and effective ways for companies to communicate with their target audiences, including HCPs. We saw an opportunity to leverage the power of gamification to create a more interactive and enjoyable learning experience that would help people faster acquire and retain knowledge more effectively; while having companies enable education, promote key messages and drive product advocacy.
We realized that traditional methods of communication and learning, such as emails, webinars, and lectures, can be less effective at engaging people and helping them retain knowledge, especially in the fast-paced world we live in today. Gamification allows us to create a more dynamic and interactive experience that more easily captures people's attention and keeps them engaged.
Furthermore, we saw the potential for using gamification to collect valuable data and insights about how people are learning and interacting with the content, which can help companies better understand their audience and tailor their learning and communication strategies accordingly.
We kind of borrowed the idea from one of the successful game categories in mobile app stores: quiz games. We thought, what if we could translate that experience of answering quiz questions and winning points against other players, into the corporate serious world. The idea turned out into a very convincing business that until now helps more than 450 organizations worldwide in different industries, especially the Life Sciences one.
Using the method as a serious quiz mobile game fits very well with the way people use their mobile phones, especially very busy professionals. They use their phones professionally and personally during 4-5 hours per day: picking the phone between 100 and 150 times for 2-3 minutes. The way you play with gamification is answering challenges (sets of five questions) and it takes less than a minute, therefore we fit with these moments where people pick the phone and we enable learning throughout all day, everywhere, one minute at a time, perfect for professionals that don’t have time, like HCPs.
Karsten: How well established is gamification in Life Sciences and in which use cases does knowledge gamification work particularly well with HCPs?
Jaume: Gamification has become an increasingly popular way for Life Sciences companies to engage with their target audiences and drive desired behaviours, such as product adoption and advocacy.
Some examples of use cases where knowledge gamification may work particularly well with HCPs include:
Product education and training: Gamification can be an effective way to educate HCPs about new clinical studies, diseases, therapies, and products, helping them understand the benefits and features of these products and how to use them effectively.
Refreshing existing knowledge and learning a new one: helping them stay up to date on the latest information and best practices related to their specialties.
Driving product advocacy: Gamification can be used to drive product advocacy among HCPs, helping them become advocates for a company's products and encourage others to use them as well.
Using a digital engagement platform allows Life Science companies to:
1) Scale the number of impacts to more HCPs:
Complement Field Force with a higher rhythm of impacts per HCP that help increase advocacy levels
Extend audiences that can influence desired behaviours: residents, interns, nurses …
Reach new HCPs not recorded in the CRM, because with the system HCPs can invite others (if this is desired)
2) Deliver key messages and content faster, even worldwide, simultaneously in different languages, in an impactful and enjoyable way:
With one single same consistent message avoiding misalignements
Remain top of mind by using smart automated repetition
Top serious gaming stand-out user experience for HCPs
3) Programs are fully measurable:
Enrolment, participation, content read, content comprehension, knowledge levels, gaps at topic, subtopic, and question levels, by regions and countries.
Karsten: What are important aspects to be considered when designing content for gamification campaigns?
Jaume: Some important aspects are:
Education and communication objectives: Clearly defining the learning objectives and key messages to become top of mind for the gamification campaign will help guide the design of content and ensure that it is focused and effective at achieving the desired outcomes.
Value proposition: Define a precise and compelling reason for HCPs to participate in your campaign. They will access and learn relevant/engaging content and consume it in a very convenient (mobile, minute by minute) and enjoyable way (using gamification). We also need to consider their level of knowledge, interests, and needs.
Enrolment of HCPs: How will HCPs know about the gamification campaign and what marketing messages will make them to enrol on it, what channels will be used, what will be the role of the field force, what ambassadors and KOLs can we involve?
Motivation and rewards: Motivation from the HCPs point of view should be the opportunity to learn and become a better professional, that is the intrinsic powerful reward aligned with their mission. We typically don’t use any other incentives (like gifts) because we promote “white glove” gamification where all the players win something very valuable: knowledge.
Measurable outcomes: How the effectiveness of the gamification campaign will be measured in terms of participation, engagement, increase in knowledge, product advocacy …?
Illustration: Design, use cases and measurement of gamification in Life Sciences
Karsten: How long do gamification campaigns usually last?
Jaume: The length of a gamification campaign can vary depending on the specific goals and objectives of the campaign. Some gamification campaigns may be very short, lasting only 30 minutes during an event or webinar, or can last weeks, especially for knowledge boosts; while others may be longer-term campaigns that span a year with a multitude of activities across the months.
Karsten: What participation rates of HCPs can be expected, and how do you measure the overall success of gamification campaigns?
Jaume: Participation rates of HCPs in gamification campaigns can vary depending on several factors, including the relevance and attractiveness of the content, the outreach power of the Life Science company driving the campaign, and the overall design and execution of the campaign.
To measure the success of a gamification campaign, it is important to track several key metrics, including:
Enrolment: The number of HCPs who enrol in the campaign can provide insight into the overall reach and appeal of the campaign. We see enrolments of 30-50% depending on the content attractiveness and the communication power of the company.
Participation: Tracking the number of HCPs who actively participate in the campaign can provide insight into the level of interest.
Engagement: Tracking the activities the HCPs perform inside the campaign: amount of content read, quiz questions answered, points earned, provide insights into the level of engagement in the content. We see HCPs answering more than 400 questions in 5-day games, investing only 15 spare minutes per day.
Content comprehension: By answering content related quiz questions you can assess HCPs’ comprehension and retention of the content. This provides insights into the effectiveness of the campaign at achieving its communication, advocacy and learning objectives.
Knowledge increased and gaps detected: Assessing HCPs knowledge and understanding of the material, as well as any gaps in their knowledge, can help identify areas for improvement and further education. We see HCPs increasing knowledge by 20% during 5-day games. Depending on the previous knowledge of the topics covered, we see an initial getting right ratio of the quiz questions of 70% on the first day of the game and a final ratio of 90% at the final fifth day.
Karsten: I understand that gamification can also be used to train and refresh knowledge of in-field teams? How well does gamification work for them?
Jaume: Of course, it can, and it is being wildly used for internal teams just like for field teams.
In every field force (whether internal or channel based), knowledge gaps exist in people that impact negatively in how they promote product advocacy. It’s an unseen problem the size of which can be easily measured in millions of dollars. It is crucial for Life Science companies that they don’t let these gaps prevent better performance or defend their market share.
These organizations have no idea which those gaps are, in which teams they happen, regions, people, in which topics, products, processes … They can use gamification to detect knowledge gaps by asking a massive number of questions under an engaging gaming experience, while users (players) are at ease.
Another common case for internal use is product launches. The method allows to launch global programs to assess sales readiness for new product launches, detecting gaps and fixing them automatically, in the same game, by repeating per person the most failed questions several times until knowledge is fixed and people are ready to perform.
For internal use we see better KPIs, like participation increased to 90-100%, number of questions answered in a 5-day activity raised to 500 and typical knowledge increased 25%.
Karsten: Thanks for sharing these interesting insights on how gamification can be used in Life Sciences. I am quite certain that some of our readers will now be intrigued of using gamification as an additional channel in the future to keep their customers highly engaged.
In summary, we can say that knowledge gamification can be an excellent tool to keep HCPs educated about products, stay up to date with latest information, and drive product advocacy. Well-designed gamification campaigns will increase participation rates, which should be tracked closely with other performance metrics. Understanding knowledge gaps with HCPs as well as field forces through gamification will help identify areas of improvement and further education.
How valuable do you consider gamification in your therapeutic area to increase and retain knowledge quickly of HCPs?
For further reference please contact info@xeleratio.com or jaume.juan@compettia.com.
Xeleratio Consulting Ltd.
We help Life Sciences executives improve sales performance with innovative best-in-class Business Excellence tools and methodologies . Expertise in Business Excellence has been gained with over 12 years of working in different global and regional roles in the Life Sciences industry.
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